1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to rotating image data to be printed in an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical image forming apparatus, print data is bitmapped so as to match the orientation of sheets housed in a sheet cassette. Bitmap data is generated such that pieces of data to be delivered to a print engine are arranged in order in the main scanning direction and repeatedly in the sub-scanning direction.
In some situations, however, the orientation of the generated bitmap data does not match the orientation of the sheets in the sheet cassette. For example, after the generation of bitmap data, sheets in the desired sheet cassette may be used up or the sheets may be unavailable due to the occurrence of a problem, such as a sheet jam. Consequently, another sheet cassette may be selected in which sheets are oriented in a different direction. To perform printing in such a situation, rendering of the data (conversion of print data into image data) needs to be started over again, requiring extra time for performing such process.